A conventional in-vehicle device having a hard disk drive (i.e., HDD) is suitably used for a car navigation device, in which the hard disk drive stores map data. For example, the conventional in-vehicle device is disclosed in JP-A-2004-317385, which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,305. This HDD type car navigation device can search a route to a destination quickly, compared with a DVD/CD type car navigation device for reading a map data out from a DVD or a CD. Thus, the HDD type car navigation device is familiar among people.
In the hard disk drive, a head is floated by air flow caused by rotation of a disk, so that the head reads magnetic information recorded in the disk. Thus, when a vehicle is disposed at a high altitude place so that atmospheric pressure is low, the head may contact the disk so that the disk is damaged.
The present inventors has studied a hard disk drive, which is controlled such that a head in the hard disk drive is retrieved and a motor for rotating the disk turns off when a vehicle moves to a high altitude area having altitude equal to or higher than a predetermined altitude. Further, the hard disk drive is controlled such that the motor turns on and the head is returned to a normal operating position after the vehicle goes through. When the hard disk drive turns off in accordance with the altitude, the disk is prevented from being damaged, which is caused by reduction of atmospheric pressure.
However, the conventional car navigation device provides a route guiding function and other functions. Data relating to these functions are stored in the hard disk drive. In this case, when the vehicle moves into the high altitude area, these functions are not utilized.
For example, in the car navigation device, the hard disk drive stores data of a telephone directory. When a cell phone of a user is coupled with the navigation device via a cable or a short range wireless communication (e.g., a Bluetooth communication), and when the cell phone receives communication with an external sender (i.e., a caller), information about the sender such as the name of the sender is noticed to the user in the vehicle via the navigation device based on the data of the telephone directory in the hard disk drive. Here, “Bluetooth” is the registered trademark of Bluetooth Special Interest Group. For example, an in-vehicle display displays the name of the sender registered in the telephone directory together with status information of an incoming call.
In the above navigation device, when the vehicle is disposed at the high altitude place, the hard disk drive turns off. Accordingly, even when the cell phone receives the communication from the sender, the data of the telephone directory stored in the hard disk drive is not referred. Thus, the navigation device cannot notice the information about the sender corresponding to a telephone number of the sender registered in the telephone directory.
Accordingly, in this case, for example, the telephone number of the sender is noticed to the user. The information about the telephone number of the sender is not derived from the telephone directory, which is similar to a case where the communication from a telephone number which is not registered in the telephone directory.
Recent user of a cell phone always responds to the communication from a sender after the user confirms the sender. Accordingly, if the user cannot confirm the sender, the user may have bad feeling.
When the vehicle is not disposed in the high altitude area, the navigation device informs the information about the sender based on the telephone directory. However, when the vehicle is disposed in the high altitude area, the navigation device does not inform the information about the sender. Thus, when the cell phone of the user receives the communication from the sender, and the vehicle is disposed at the high altitude place, the user may misunderstand that the user receives from an unknown person's call even if the sender is registered in the telephone directory. The user may become anxious. Therefore, it is not preferred that only the telephone number of the sender is informed to the user without referring to the telephone directory when the hard disk drive turns off since the vehicle is disposed at the high altitude place.